Report reveals MOT cost savings for agency and motorists but what about test stations?

The DVSA highlights improvements made to the MOT testing service in its 2016 to 2017 review.

The DVSA has published its first annual review, which reports on recent changes to the MOT testing service, MOT training and outlines future plans for the agency.

Gareth Llewellyn, DVSA accounting officer and chief executive said: “We have invested in further improvements to the MOT system including, for example, helping garage managers with simplified processes, improving provision of information to help testers to conduct the test correctly and building an MOT reminder service for the public.”

Since the launch of the new MOT testing service, the DVSA has made 25 improvements.

These include addition of technical information for vehicles and making it easier for testers to find and add defects they’ve identified on a vehicle – they’ll also be able to remove defects when they’re carrying out a retest.

Llewellyn added: “We also rolled out the new MOT training and assessment model.

“The MOT testing service received recognition as one of the ‘best agile projects’ in government from the Government Digital Service.”

MOT fraud

In the last year, the DVSA has investigated 511 garages and 483 testers – it stopped 45 garages and 111 testers from testing.

In the report, the agency said: “In some of these cases there were administrative errors, but the more serious cases involved testers who’d issued MOT certificates without actually testing the vehicle.

“In the most severe cases we took the testers to court, and some received prison sentences.”

Cost savings

The DVSA’s income from the MOT service has remained steady, however expenditure in the current year has reduced following the implementation of new IT software in 2015-16.

The new MOT testing service contributes to a £22.8 million saving, of which the agency says it will reinvest into further service improvements.

The future

The agency has built and tested an initial version of an MOT reminder system for motorists, which is expected to be launched within the next year.

Motorists will be able to sign up to receive email alerts, which will be sent four weeks before their MOT test is due, then two weeks before.

The agency has said it will investigate how new technology can streamline the processes for the commercial vehicle testing service.

“We want to improve our testers’ access to vehicle information at the time of testing, and capture and produce test results digitally,” the report claims.

“We also aim to improve the service to our customers by simplifying the current payment process, making it easier for them to make payments and view their account in real time.”

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